A messenger ran up to me at the building site where I was working. “Rebecca says you’re needed at the shortwave set, stat.” I commandeered two workers, the messenger, and a Bikezilla and pedaled my way back to Longhouse One.
As I approached the table near the turbine tower door where we kept the shortwave receiver, I heard Rita Mae’s rough, distinctive voice, “Is he here yet? Over.”
“Running up now,” Rebecca replied. “Over.”
She handed the mike to me, and I mashed the talk lever. “Good to hear from you, Rita Mae. Over.”
“I’ve got no time,” she said, and I heard the pop and rattle of gunfire in the background. “The DWBs are here. Hundreds of them. They’ve taken half the city. Mayor Kenda’s dead. We’re going to have to bug out any minute now. Over.”
I thought furiously. Last I’d heard, there were still flensers in Dubuque. Peckerwoods, though, not Dirty White Boys. It would take at least four days to get a force of any size all the way to Worthington. Obviously Rita Mae didn’t have that kind of time. “Head for Bellevue. I’ll meet you there. Over.”
“We may not—” There was a pop and a hiss. The line went dead.
Chapter 75
It took all day to get ready to leave. Ed and Nylce had all kinds of questions I couldn’t answer and issues I didn’t know how to deal with. Charlotte and Anna were panicked about the dent that taking three hundred people out of Speranta on an expedition toward Worthington would make in the work rosters. And then, to top it all off, a council meeting was called, and I spent more than an hour twisting arms, trying to convince four of the seven of them to vote to authorize the expedition. The real sticking point was whether I would be allowed to go, but I wasn’t willing to compromise on that—Rita Mae was in trouble, and I owed it to her to help. By the end of the meeting, I was cursing the stupid system of divided government we had adopted. We didn’t get away from Speranta until the next morning.
Rebecca stayed up all night personally monitoring the shortwave. She heard nothing from Worthington; the frequency they normally used was dead. The delay did have one benefit: Ed and Nylce had used the time to prepare superbly—we had more than three hundred armed men and women ready, all of whom were on Bikezillas or skis. The Bikezillas carried tents, bedrolls, tools, cooking gear, medical supplies, extra weapons, ammo, and about a month’s worth of food for the entire force, plus extra for the folks in Worthington we hoped to rescue. Ed would stay behind— he was responsible for the overall defense of Speranta—and Nylce would lead the military side of the expedition. We planned to be gone less than a week, but in the postvolcano world, there was no such thing as overprepared.
We made great time, reaching the Illinois side of the Mississippi, just before dark on the second day. Uncle Paul and Darla had modified one of the Bikezillas with a small battery pack and pedal-powered electrical generator that allowed us to run a shortwave transceiver and stay in touch with Speranta. The gleaner, Grant, had turned up offering to sell us another transceiver at a ridiculous price, and after hours of haggling with him, I had bought it. We could listen to transmissions any time, but to send our own farther than a couple of miles, we had to stop and string an antenna. Each night, I spoke with Rebecca and
Darla via the shortwave. Rebecca hadn’t heard anything from Worthington. Darla was fuming at being left in charge of Speranta—she hadn’t been able to work with Uncle Paul at all since I left, but it sounded like everything was running smoothly in my absence.
The next morning we rode across the frozen Mississippi—a five-mile trek. When we arrived in Bellevue, Iowa, midmorning, it was empty and abandoned. Rita Mae and the folks from Worthington were nowhere to be found.
Nylce sent out nearly a hundred scouts in small groups. If Rita Mae was still on her way from Worthington, it would be easy to miss her. We left a group hidden on the second floor of one of the old brick buildings in downtown Bellevue to keep watch in case Rita Mae showed up, and then we moved out, heading slowly toward Worthington.
Our scouts found no sign of Rita Mae, the DWBs, or anyone else from Worthington, and we made camp that night around an abandoned farmhouse near La Motte, Iowa, about twelve miles west of Bellevue.
The next morning we finally found Rita Mae less than fifteen miles from Worthington. A huge shotgun was slung across her tiny back, and her crazed white hair escaped from her hat in straggly wisps. She led a ragtag group of twenty-four, mostly children, six of whom were so sick that they were being dragged along on makeshift stretchers. I ran forward to give her a hug.
“Where’s everyone else?” I asked. “Earl and—” “They’re dead, Alex,” Rita Mae said. “They stayed behind to fight, to delay the DWBs so we could get away. I would have stayed too . . . but . . . but someone had to . . . had to . . .” she gestured at the kids arrayed around her and broke down crying. I held her head against my shoulder, amazed that she had brought anyone out. Rita Mae was beyond tough—she was easily the oldest person I had seen in more than a year, as almost all the survivors were under thirty-five—maybe she was too cantankerous to die. Still, the death toll had been horrendous. The last time I’d talked to Mayor Kenda on the shortwave, nearly two hundred people had called Worthington home.
“You’re safe now,” I said softly.
Rita Mae broke the embrace and looked around. Our soldiers were everywhere—some of them spread out in a defensive posture, some of them tending to Rita Mae’s charges. “You’ve got more than a hundred soldiers here?” “Three hundred. About a third of them are out scouting, though.”
“It’s enough. You could retake Worthington. Kill those sons of bitches. Kill them all.”
“We could.”
“But you won’t, will you?”
“No.” I let my breath escape my lungs. It sounded like a dying man’s sigh.
Rita Mae’s tiny fists were clenched. “They killed everyone, Alex. Mayor Kenda, Sheriff Earl, Mrs. Nance, Mr. Chapman—”
“I know.”
“Then why? Why not restore some order to this corner of the world? The DWBs deserve to hang, every one of them, but shooting will do just fine.”
“I can’t restore order everywhere—”
“But—”
“And if I try, not only the DWBs will die. Some of our people will die too. Sometimes it’s best to do nothing.”
“All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”
“Why do you think they attacked Worthington?” I asked.
Rita Mae snorted. “We know why they attacked. They were starving. We had food and they didn’t. To them, we are food.”
“Right. And Worthington was the toughest target in the area. Now that you’re gone, what will happen?” “They’ll migrate in search of food.”
“Maybe. And if they come our way, we’ll be able to deal with them on our own ground, using our prepared defenses. Far fewer of our people will die in that kind of battle. But what if they don’t—or can’t—migrate?”
“I don’t know.”
“They’ll eat each other. I’ve seen it before in Freeport. Cannibalism is simply not a viable long-term survival strategy. The problem solves itself.”
Rita Mae folded her arms across her chest. “That’s a cold way of looking at it.”
“It’s a cold world.”
“I want to see them hang.”
“Which do you think is a more horrible way to die? The few seconds of pain during a hanging? Or having a friend knife you in the back while you sleep?”
We stopped for the day, setting up a defensive perimeter around another mostly burned farmhouse. Nylce spent the day consolidating patrols, sending scouts out toward Worthington, trying to locate the DWBs, and planning for a retreat the next day.
I circulated among Rita Mae’s charges, making sure they all had food, water, and warm clothing. A few of them had minor injuries—mostly frostbite—but there was nothing that couldn’t wait until we reached Dr. McCarthy and Belinda. The sick kids seeme
d to be improving now that they had food, warm clothing, and could ride in the Bikezillas’ load beds.
We made great time the next day, collecting our people in Bellevue and reaching the west bank of the Mississippi just before dusk. We could travel faster when we were on a known route; it was easier to plan and coordinate the movement of our scouts.
We set out across the frozen expanse of the Mississippi the next morning at dawn. Less than fifteen minutes after we started out, the shortwave crackled to life. “Alex, if you can hear this, stop and set up your antenna. It’s urgent.” The voice was Darla’s, which was strange. Normally
Rebecca operated the shortwave during daylight hours. I squeezed the brakes, and my Bikezilla skidded to a stop. I handed one end of the antenna wire to each of the guys behind me, and they ran out along the ice on either side of me, stretching the wire horizontally to its full sixty-plus-foot length. It was better to suspend the wire higher, in a building or tree, but out here on the ice, all they could do was hold it over their heads.
“Alex here. What’s wrong? Over.”
“It’s your mother, Alex. They took her.”
Chapter 76
I jammed the talk lever down so hard I briefly wondered if the mike would break. “Who took her? Where? When?” I was so rattled I held the lever, forgetting to let up and allow her to speak for a moment. “Over,” I finally said, releasing the lever.
“There are five people missing—Stocktonites. Sort of a sleeper cell of Reds, we think.”
“Maybe she left with them on purpose?”
“No. They left a note tacked to the door of Longhouse Five. They want five Bikezillas loaded with food. We’re supposed to leave them at that wrecked bank near Stockton. And Alex, there was . . .
a pinkie finger attached to the note. It looks like your Mom’s.”
I ordered Nylce to detach her twelve fastest Bikezillas carrying forty-seven soldiers plus me. Nylce stayed with the remaining soldiers and the refugees from Worthington while I raced for Speranta, finishing the roughly forty-mile trek before dark. Darla met me at the door of the longhouse.
“I sent out scouts to try to track them, but we lost their trail on an icy stretch of Highway 78. I’m sorry.” My legs were rubbery from the exertion of the long ride. I held open my arms and stumbled into Darla’s embrace. “It’s okay. You did exactly what I would have. Get five Bikezillas loaded up with food, would you? I want to leave at first light.”
“You’re going to give in to them?”
“Sort of. Have someone find Ben and send him to the kitchen, please. I’ve got to sit down and eat something.”
I went over my plan with Ben. He made a few tweaks, and then we went over it several more times, thinking through everything that could go wrong. Finally, I excused myself to go to bed. I had to be at one hundred percent the next day, which meant I needed to sleep.
As I stood up from my late, working dinner, I saw Mayor Petty wheeling himself across the floor toward me. “Who’s watching Alexia?” I asked.
“Alyssa and Wyn,” Petty said. “Are we leaving now?” “Is she okay?”
“She wasn’t there when they took your mother, thank God. When are we leaving?”
“Not now. First thing in the morning.”
“We need to go now. God knows what’s happening to her out there!”
“They want to make a trade. They won’t hurt her.” “What? Chopping off a finger doesn’t count?”
He had a point. “Regardless, there’s nothing we can do until the morning. And Bob, I’m sorry, but you can’t come.” Petty stared at me for a moment, his face turning a progressively deeper shade of purple. Then he banged his hands on the armrest of his wheelchair so hard that the whole thing rattled. “Goddamn these legs!” He drew in a heavy breath and seized my right hand. “You’ll bring her home, right?”
“I will. Now let me get some sleep. We’re leaving before dawn.”
But I was still awake when Darla came to bed more than two hours later. “Everything’s ready,” she said. “We can leave at first light.”
“You’ve got to stay and run things here.”
“I already worked it out with your uncle. I appointed him vice-vice mayor. I’m going.”
“There’s no such thing as a vice-vice mayor!”
“There is now.” Darla silenced my further objections with a kiss.
I split our forces into three groups. I’d gutted Ed’s defensive force, commandeering five Bikezillas and seventy soldiers from him. Two groups left at dawn, traveling across country. My group would take up a position on the hilltop at the northeast corner of Highway 20 and Highway 78. We could hide amid the stumps and deep snow up there and observe the ruins of the bank on the east side of Stockton. The second group with Darla would swing wide around Stockton, hiding behind the car wall on the south side of the city. We took the portable shortwave and the transceiver from Longhouse One so the two groups could coordinate. The third group—five Bikezillas loaded with food—would leave an hour after us, taking the direct route to Stockton. They were supposed to follow the directions on the ransom note and leave the Bikezillas at the ruined bank. Then they would hightail it back to Speranta on skis.
The plan went off perfectly. We all got into position, the Bikezillas with their ransom of food parked just inside the bank’s mostly collapsed brick walls—and nothing happened. We waited, and waited, and waited. After a couple of hours, I set up a watch schedule and went to check on the scouts I had posted. There was nothing I could do but try to stay calm. I wasn’t, of course, but I thought I did a pretty good job faking it.
Late that night I had fallen into an uneasy slumber, when Trig Boling shook me awake. “Lights, Mayor,” he said, “on the road below us.”
I leaped up and crawled to our forward observation post, taking the binoculars from the soldier posted there. Trig was right behind me. The lights were almost directly below us, approaching the intersection. Five or six hooded lanterns or flashlights leaked just enough illumination, I could see that a group of about twenty people was moving along the road toward the bank.
“Radio Force Two. Tell them to get ready,” I murmured to Trig. He crawled away, back to the main part of our camp.
I waited another five minutes until they were well clear of the intersection below us and crawled back to camp myself. I picked up the shortwave mike, mashed the lever, and said one word: “Go.”
“Roger,” Darla replied.
My name is Alex, not Roger, I thought. Some people deal with tension by breaking down; others get angry. I think of stupid jokes.
We mounted our Bikezillas—six of them—and whooshed almost silently down the hillside in the darkness. It took almost a minute to drag the Bikezillas across the snow berm onto the road, and then we were flying toward the group on the road. I could see their lights now, even without the binoculars.
Each Bikezilla switched to attack mode—the back two riders kept pedaling, one of the front riders managed the steering and brakes, and the other lifted a rifle, ready to fire. Four riders on each load bed also prepared to fire. We hugged the south side of the road—Darla’s group would do the same—so that we could fire at anyone in the middle of the road without hitting each other.
The men in the road didn’t notice us until we were close—less than 150 feet away. Some of them turned, holding guns. “Freeze! Drop your weapons!” I bellowed. Three of them turned to aim at me, but without any light, I was only a voice in the dark. Rifles boomed from the west—Darla’s group. I couldn’t see them, but the muzzle flashes were clearly visible.
A short, chaotic battle ensued. Rifle shots seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. They had lights, and we were in near-total darkness, but they returned fire at our muzzle flashes. Some of the Reds ran; we shot at them, but without lights they melted away into the darkness, and I was sure we didn’t hit them all. I hoped they wouldn’t show up on our flanks. I hoped my mother had the sense to throw herself flat if she was out there.
People fell on both sides, and the reports of the rifles were augmented by screams and moans, a chaotic symphony of suffering.
Someone yelled, “We surrender! We surrender!”
I bellowed, “Cease fire!” A few more rifle shots sounded. Then everything fell quiet.
A new voice rang out, “Shine a lantern over here.” It was Red.
When the light swung onto him, I saw that he had one arm wrapped around my mother, holding her tightly against his body. The other hand held a knife at her throat.
Chapter 77
“Mom!” I yelled.
“Alex!”
“While this reunion is no doubt touching,” Red said, “I have business to attend to. You are going to allow us to walk over to that bank, pick up our food, and bike out of here. Or I will give your mother a very messy tracheotomy.”
I looked around the battlefield. There were only nine or ten Reds left. I had almost fifty soldiers with rifles backing me up, and there were more in the darkness on Darla’s side of the battle. A sudden stab of fear nearly paralyzed me: what if she’d been hit?
Behind me a couple of our guys—field medics—were scurrying around treating our injured.
“No,” I shouted back at Red. “You’re going to put your weapons down, come back to Speranta, and stand trial for your crimes.”
“This knife is so sharp, it will not only part your mother’s trachea and jugular, it will also sever the sternohyoid, omohyoid, and thyrohyoid muscles. It may not cut her spine, but in any case, her head will be left flopping, connected by only a few threads of cartilage.” “You do that, and we’ll shoot you. So we’re stalemated.” “I have nothing to lose.” The knife glided sideways. My mother started to bleed.
I thought furiously for a moment. What would convince Red to let my mother go? He had an ego as large as his body was small—particularly where his knives were concerned. “Let’s raise the stakes.” I laid down my rifle and drew my belt knife. “You think you’re the knife god? Let’s find out. You and me, knives only I win, I get my mother. You win, you get Speranta.” I knew there was no way Darla would honor that promise, but I thought Red might believe it.